Uzbekistan

Language in the 1990s

The official linguistic policy of the Karimov government has been that
Uzbek is the language of the state, and Russian is the second language.
Residents of Uzbekistan are required to study Uzbek to be eligible for
citizenship. Following similar decisions in Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan,
in September 1993 Uzbekistan announced plans to switch its alphabet from
Cyrillic, which by that time had been in use for more than fifty years, to
a script based on a modified Latin alphabet similar to that used in
Turkey. According to plans, the transition will be complete by the year
2000. The primary reason for the short deadline is the urgent need to
communicate with the outside world using a more universally understood
alphabet. The move also has the political significance of signaling
Uzbekistan's desire to break away from its past reliance on Russia and to
limit the influence of Muslim states such as Saudi Arabia and Iran, which
use the Arabic alphabet. A major project is under way to eradicate Russian
words from the language and replace these words with "pure"
Turkic words that have been borrowed from what is believed to be the
ancient Turkic language of Inner Asia. At the same time, Uzbekistan's
linguistic policies also are moving toward the West. In the early 1990s,
the study of English has become increasingly common, and many policy
makers express the hope that English will replace Russian as the language
of international communication in Uzbekistan.